Chap. VI. THEIR PARENTAGE. 185 



V 



From these facts it can hardly be doubted that G. livia, affinis, inter- 

 media, and the forms marked with an interrogation by Bonaparte, ought 

 all to be included under a single species. But it is quite immaterial 

 whether or not they are thus ranked, and whether some one of these 

 forms or all are the progenitors- of the various domestic kinds, as far as 

 any light is thus thrown on the differences between the more strongly- 

 marked races. That common dovecot-pigeons, which are kept in various 

 parts of the world, are descended from one or from several of the above- 

 mentioned wild varieties of 0. livia, no one who compares them will 

 doubt. But before making a few remarks on dovecot-pigeons, it should 

 be stated that the wild rock-pigeon has been found easy to tame in 

 several countries. We have seen that Colonel King at Hythe stocked 

 his dovecot more than twenty years ago with young wild birds taken 

 at the Orkney Islands, and since this time they have greatly multi- 

 plied. The accurate Macgillivray 15 asserts that he completely tamed a 

 wild rock-pigeon in the Hebrides; and several accounts are on record 

 of these pigeons having bred in dovecots in the Shetland Islands. In 

 India, as Captain Hutton informs me, the wild rock-pigeon is easily 

 tamed, and breeds readily with the domestic kind; and Mr. Blyth 16 

 asserts that wild birds come frequently to the dovecots and mingle freely 

 with their inhabitants. In the ancient ' Ayeen Akbery ' it is written that, 

 if a few wild pigeons be taken, "they are speedily joined by a thousand 

 others of their kind." 



Dovecot-pigeons are those which are kept in dovecots in a semi- 

 domesticated state; for no special care is taken of them, and they pro- 

 cure their own food, except during the severest weather. In England, 

 and, judging from MM. Boitard and Corbie's work, in France, the common 

 dovecot-pigeon exactly resembles the chequered variety of C. livia ; but I 

 have seen dovecots brought from Yorkshire, without any trace of che- 

 quering, like the wild rock-pigeon of the Shetland Islands. The chequered 

 dovecots from the Orkney Islands, after having been domesticated by 

 Colonel King for more than twenty years, differed slightly from each other 

 in the darkness of their plumage, and in the thickness of their beaks ; 

 the thinnest beak being rather thicker than the thickest one in the Madeira 

 birds. In Germany, according to Bechstein, the common dovecot-pigeon 

 is not chequered. In India they often become chequered, and sometimes 

 pied with white ; the croup also, as I am informed by Mr. Blyth, becomes 

 nearly white. I have received from Sir J. Brooke some dovecot-pigeons, 



15 'History of British Birds,' vol. i. pigeon came and settled in his dovecot 



pp. 275-284. Mr. Andrew Duncan in Balta Sound in the Shetland Islands, 



tamed a rock-pigeon in the Shetland and bred with his pigeons; he has also 



Islands. Mr. James Barclay, and Mr. given me other instances of the wild 



Smith of Uvea Sound, both say that rock-pigeon having been taken young 



the wild rock-pigeou can be easily and breeding in captivity, 

 tamed; and the former gentleman 16 'Annals and Mag. of Nat. History,' 



asserts that the tamed birds breed four vol. xix., 1847. p. 103, and vol. for 1857, 



times a year. Dr. Lawrence Edmond- p. 512. 

 stone informs me that a wild rock- 



